When Jenna Blyler was earning her master's in public policy at Jacksonville University, she was studying what most would rather not think about: how ordinary people perceive and respond to health risks they cannot see or fully understand. That research thread has now led her to a nationally significant study.
Blyler, a Double Dolphin who earned her bachelor's degree in political science and psychology in 2018 and her master's in public policy from JU in 2021, is in her fourth year of a doctoral program in psychology at the University of Southern California. She and her co-authors recently published a peer-reviewed paper examining how residents living near the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a former Cold War aerospace and nuclear research site in the hills above Los Angeles, perceive and respond to chronic environmental health risk.
Established in 1949, the Santa Susana Field Lab was the site of pioneering American aerospace and nuclear research, contributing to the first liquid-fueled rocket engine, the first American satellite launch and ultimately the Moon landing. In 1959, one of its nuclear reactors experienced a partial meltdown that released radioactive material into the surrounding environment. Today, nearly 1 million people live within 15 miles of the site.
Blyler and her team surveyed 475 of those residents, extending the geographic scope of previous health research and examining a broader range of chronic illnesses than earlier studies had considered. Their findings revealed higher rates of autoimmune, endocrine and metabolic conditions among residents living closest to the site.
Blyler said the question that drove the research was, “How do people with greater resources experience chronic health risk?”
The publication is drawing attention from multiple news outlets. The team is already at work on a second paper examining how psychological proximity to a risk source (how close someone feels to a threat, rather than how close they physically live to it) relates to individual and community responses including advocacy, litigation and public testimony.
Blyler credits her time at Jacksonville University, and in particular her work under the mentorship of psychologist Dr. Amanda McGraw during her master's program, with laying the foundation for this research.
Read Blyler's research paper here.
